


let it be for nought except for love's sake

by Dialects_and_Costumes



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, JB Fic Exchange, Sexual Content, author loves describing coastal settings at nighttime, brief mention of canon compliant twincest, canon compliant injury, lots of description of the shore and night, no really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:46:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25758316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dialects_and_Costumes/pseuds/Dialects_and_Costumes
Summary: Second times mean second chances.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 60
Kudos: 137
Collections: Jaime x Brienne Fic Exchange 2020





	let it be for nought except for love's sake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luthien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/gifts).



> For Luthien, who inspired me with two prompts I couldn't decide between… so I did them both: "The second time" and the poem ["Meeting at Night" by Robert Browning](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43766/meeting-at-night)  
> The title is from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 14 "If thou must love me…"  
> Thanks so much to aliveanddrunkonsunlight for beta-ing this story for me! You are amazing and wonderful, and I'm sending you virtual cookies baked to perfection as thanks for making sure I made sense. Any remaining errors are mine.

The second time it happens, he must find her first.

He is here, examining the cliff-side he must hike on the shores of the land King Rhaegar banished him to as the new Warden of the Stormlands, a kingdom in disgrace after the failed rebellion of House Baratheon. His father had always described the Stormlanders as small, but they are never as boring or as harmless as what Tywin raised him to expect. They fight for their right to exist, to survive, and to live.

And now he is here, searching for her in an unfamiliar and harsh land.

She tends to her three acres of land that looks out onto the sea, living on a brutal swath of land at the tip of Massey’s Hook, destined to always look out onto the seas that hold her once-home, a highborn lady now tending meager samphire and corn crops.

The last Evenstar, stranded on the edge of the world.

He arrives in a small skip of a boat that is blessed by the pull of the evening tides and the rising moon, landing on the rocky, seaweed beaches. He has always been a child of the sea, but Shipbreaker Bay is rougher and hewn from the tough boulders that drown sailors. It is not like the smooth waters of Casterly Rock.

_Come and find me._

The first time, she had murmured those four words before she fled the empty halls of Storm’s End, after both of them had finally remembered what it was to breathe. She had only known him for two days, and she already _knew_ he wouldn’t be able to resist a challenge thrown at his feet.

It had been no matter to him if the whole of the Stormlands crumbled into the sea, but she had defied his careful act of nonchalance and dared him to care about this land he has been banished to.

He is not meant to be here, and yet, she challenges him to learn the land.

_Come and find me._

No wonder he had been itching for a fight when it happened the first time.

No wonder it had turned into something much different from fighting.

* * *

_What do you intend to do to protect the coast after the storm season ends?_ She hadn’t bowed, hadn’t introduced herself. She came into the room verbally swinging for his head, and he barely had the grace to hide his wince of surprise while the rain dripped onto the stones of Storm’s End’s library from her large body.

 _And you are?_ His responding sneer had been particularly Lannister-like as he did his best to ignore the stabbing pain in his wrist from the storm raging outside. He wondered if he would ever stop imagining his missing hand flexing in pain when the Stormlands lived up to their name.

 _Brienne of Tarth._ She had spat her name at him, eyes flashing in disdain. It was all too apparent she knew who _he_ was by the judgement sketching furrowed lines into her face.

 _Well, Brienne of Tarth, while I’m sure you’d like your new liege lord to promise the world to you, I’m afraid I have no idea what you want of me, and_ I _demand you be more specific. Protection from what? The tides that come in every day? Leviathans and dragons?_

Jaime had grinned ferociously at her, fully intending to rip the woman to shreds, striding over to her. But as he stood in front of her, and looked up to her star-lit eyes, his heart started thumping out a traitorous rhythm. It hadn’t beat this way for his sister.

 _Something_ had happened in those steps he took towards her, and he felt a rush when he was before her realizing what it was that made his skin prickle with anticipation.

She hadn’t backed down.

Her eyes flashed, but she had been rooted to the spot, a fixed point in the library. As the thunder had boomed around them, he pressed his luck and stepped close enough to count the freckles dotting her crooked nose.

His own eyes gleamed with a dangerous edge to them, and they flicked to her mouth and back up to her eyes and she had swallowed.

 _What do you want, Brienne of Tarth?_ He had asked, and his voice had dropped into a timbre he almost didn’t recognize. She was soaked to the skin despite her dour and practical oiled cloak, she looked like a half-drowned plank of wood, and yet his voice sounded as if he _wanted_ this great beast of a woman glaring at him.

Her eyes had grown wide, and she had pushed him away from her and stomped out the door, slamming it shut. He would have laughed, but his whole body shook instead. He felt like a newborn colt, all shaky legs and wobbly steps.

She had returned the next day, and she had once again stood strong and tall in the library, still dripping from the storm that refused to leave the lands named for them. He had wondered if she had dreamed of him like he had of her, if she had wakened sweaty and panting with need. He stalked closer to her, delighting in the way her eyes grew wide, not with fear but with desire.

 _What do you want, Brienne of Tarth?_ He had asked again.

It hadn’t been a complete surprise when she had kissed him, only because he was doing his best to not throw himself at her at a frightening velocity.

 _I want you._ He had growled it against her mouth without thinking and she pulled back for a single desperate moment. It surprised him as much as it did her, but the moment he said it, he knew he wanted nothing more than to feel her long limbs wrapped around him as they lost themselves in devastating ecstasy.

 _Do you want me? Kinslayer, Reluctant Lord of the Stormlands, banished to the lands of the traitorous Baratheons by a King so self-righteous he couldn’t bother to admit to his own patricide?_ His voice was caustic and raw, a flailing whip of words designed give the woman one last chance to run away so he could nurse his wounds in peace.

A single heartbeat against his chest and then:

_No._

_I want you._

_Just you._

And then he had been lost in her gasps against his lips as he kissed her hard, the woman letting him back her up against a wall, both of them moaning with need as they tugged laces free and thrust bodies together.

She had nearly cracked her head open on the stones behind her when she came, her long, pale legs and arms entwined around him.

The aftermath… He had felt lost at sea, and it was only Brienne’s parting words as she swept her cloak around her shoulders, her shaken and bemused expressions melting away to an enticingly hidden and thoughtful one, that he felt he belonged to himself once more.

_Come and find me._

* * *

So now here he is, hiking across the seaweed coated and slick pebbles still radiating heat from the sun bowing to the reign of moonlight.

_I want you._

_Just you._

Those words are what now spur him across the fields, a pilgrim in unfamiliar lands as he finds himself on tilled soil rather than polished marble. His boots, designed to protect the feet of a soft Lord of the south, do nothing to protect him from the midnight dew soaking through the leather and making his steps laborious and awkward.

He laughs to himself, shaking his head as the land beneath his feet demands a sacrifice on this quest of his, and he pauses to strip his boots from his body. He will feel this new land on his skin as he strides across another field to arrive at her small cottage. His feet are bare and muddy.

He taps on the driftwood that makes up her door with his false hand.

_You found me._

* * *

When she had left, challenging him to find her, he had nearly lost his mind.

The first week, he took himself in hand so frequently he considered never leaving his rooms and simply wandering them without breeches. All he could do was think of her pale skin and the way she had challenged him to find her again, and he was gone, wanting more than anything to have her undone in his arms.

 _Right… ahh, there, please…_ _J- please!_ She hadn’t said his name.

He wanted her to say his name.

He wanted to earn that sound falling from her lips.

The next week, he had sent more ravens than he ever had (even before losing a hand) to his brother in the capitol, to the citadel, to anyone who could provide him with more information on Tarth, an island forgotten to him in the mess of war.

_Imagine my surprise to see a raven from my brother after months of silence from the Steward of the Stormlands. I send all the best wishes from the Targaryen court, where Rhaegar the Just, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men and the Protector of the Peace conspires to remove all joy in his continued mourning for both his wives and the very father he slaughtered._

_Our sister sends words to you that mere quill and parchment cannot do justice to. I must hope the King rescinds your banishment from King’s Landing, so you may hear every drop of venom in our sweet sister’s voice. She thinks to supplant his Majesty’s only heirs, throwing herself at Prince Viserys and Princess Daenerys in her hopes to win the King’s favor._

_I believe she would be more successful if she claimed the moon was made of curds and whey. It would certainly be more original than her predictable court machinations._

_In your raven, you inquired about Brienne of Tarth, only surviving child of Lord Selwyn Tarth. According to the official records, when the pirate forces stormed the Eastern Isles, her father forced her aboard the last ship bound for the mainland before dying protecting the Sapphire Isle. The crown gifted her three acres of land along the coast line and a promise to restore Tarth to her once the conflict in the North is settled with the Starks._

_In asking my own little questions, I find she is considered a great brute of a woman, slow and plain, and many believe the King was so “generous” just to remove her from his court. Even a dour Targaryen needs to be surrounded by glittering things, it seems. I certainly believe you’ll be up to the challenge of facing such an indomitable foe after you so ~~handily~~ dispatched of our father. _

_Your brother_

His brother had included a map to the lands gifted to the last Evenstar of Tarth, and Jaime had begun his quest in earnest.

* * *

She is just as tall as that first time, so he now knows he hasn’t imagined this broad and strong woman before him, craning her neck to bow beneath the small door-frame as she welcomes him in. She is surprisingly quiet, but her face isn’t twisted uncomfortably like it had during their first encounter at Storm’s End. Despite the rudimentary design and cramped quarters, she fills the single room of her cottage with the presence of the Evenstar she is meant to be. For one still so young, she has not backed down from the fight of being leader to a war-torn band of refugees spread throughout the Stormlands.

She could be a knight from the tales. She could be the lord and master his father always expected him to be, and it shakes Jaime to the core to see such honor and nobility before him. She reaches for him, and Jaime feels unworthy to touch her all of a sudden, does not think he deserves to lose himself in her arms.

She proves him wrong, just as she had the first time. She decides he is worthy of her touch and her attention as she unbuckles the straps holding his false hand in place. He starts at the gentleness, looking up at her in wordless confusion as she strokes her long fingers on the scars crisscrossing in angry red welts on his skin. It aches every day, a wound he knows will never fully heal, but her touches are cool and soothing for a moment in time.

 _I want you comfortable in my home, Jaime._ She is bold with his name, and it makes him feel like weeping. He does not even have to ask her to say his name this second time. Here, he is no Lord Lannister in this small room lit by a single blue candle, the firelight and her eyes. The Smith outdid his own godliness when he crafted those eyes of hers.

She hesitates, and for a moment, he wonders if she did not believe he would find her.

 _Brienne._ He breathes her name in. She runs her hands down his arm, her hands sure and strong over the creases where the straps of his false hand had dug into his skin.

They had been rough the first time, shaking with her apprehension that he would tell her to stop. She knows now that he does not want her to stop.

Her hand stills as she looks down and sees his bare feet, and she lets out a huff of breath that could be read as irritation if not for the fond smile hovering at the edge of her mouth. She takes his arm, still tender in all her touches, and leads him to a chair by the fireplace. He watches her move through the room, focusing on the way the light hits her back, how he can see her incredible shoulders flex even through her tunic, and he is so entranced by her warrior’s grace, he does not realize what she intends to do until she has knelt by his side.

There is a basin of clear water with steam rising from it next to her, and she looks up at him with a hint of uncertainty in her glance. For all her quiet nobility, she is still youthful and uncertain, and he must strive not to tremble at her lack of guile.

 _May I?_ She asks, gesturing to the mud caked onto his feet.

He can only nod, swallowing down a sob of gratitude as she gently wrings out a cloth and begins to wash his right foot.

The only noise for a few moments are the splashes of water as she rinses the cloth. Her hands are gentle, so gentle, and it’s almost as if they’ve woven an enchantment because suddenly he is saying,

_He killed Elia._

He would curse himself for bringing this subject into her home, but she does not stop in her careful ministrations. She only adjusts her weight on her knees as she grasps his ankle, and guides it to soak in the basin of warm water.

The words continue to tumble out of him, words he could not speak when he was found bloody and broken in the Red Keep surrounded by the dead Dornish princess and his dead father and the dead children.

_My father wanted my sister to marry King Rhaegar after Rhaegar killed Aerys, and after Lyanna Stark was dead._

She nods her head to indicate she is listening, but does not stop washing his feet. He continues on, his voice a contained strangle of words.

_The King had refused to acknowledge Elia after Lyanna’s death, claiming he was a widow. My father told me he wished to simply smuggle Elia away to Dorne where he and the Council would be able to better address the King’s original annulment, and so Rhaegar could marry Cersei._

Her grasp on his ankle tightens slightly. It is not painful, but it serves as a reminder that she is still listening.

 _I_ swore _to protect the innocent. Before all else, before I was placed in charge of the Lannister forces, before I led them in battle against Robert and his Hammer, before I swore to remain loyal to the Crown, I had_ sworn _to protect the innocent. Elia and her children… he ordered me to slaughter them, and when I refused, he had Gregor Clegane remove my hand._

_‘If you will not use it to defend your family, I will take it from you’ he told me._

Her hands do not stop, she cups water in her hand to rinse his left foot, but he can feel them trembling slightly when she rubs her hand and not the cloth against his skin.

 _I lay bleeding as Clegane bashed in the heads of her-_ he chokes on the memory, _her children, and I heard her screaming as he pinned her to the ground._

_I still had my dagger, but my father thought he has successfully defanged me. He grabbed my head to force me to watch. I slid the blade into his throat before the world went dark around me, and when I awoke, I was branded kinslayer. A useless knight who could not be trusted to keep a woman and her babes alive._

Jaime looks down at his feet, focusing on the way the water drips down his heel, but soon his field of vision is all blue. She has grasped his face in hers, and he must look at her. There is no room for his shame in her startling eyes, and for a moment, he thinks there is a chance of salvation.

He has not kissed her yet.

He dare not.

He reaches for her tunic, the laces already undone.

The first time she had stopped him for a moment when her legs were already wrapped around his waist and they were rutting against one another, and her eyes had been struck with a moment of fear. As he had looked up at her panting with want, her own desire had overtaken the fear, and he had kissed and sucked and bitten the rest of those fears away.

This time, she stops him, and he wonders if he has frightened her once more, and she has pulled just far enough away that he cannot kiss her like he did the first time. He is halfway through a mental litany of curses towards each of the Seven Gods before she surprises him again and pulls the tunic above her own head for him.

There is something the first and the second time have in common: she is still glorious.

Yes. Glorious and not beautiful, he decides. That word does not encompass all that she is in this moment and the first time. Her skin is marble, pale and strong, as if the Smith intended her to withstand tempests with her small breasts bared against the oncoming storm. Her shoulders are broad, thick with the muscles from her dutiful farming and years of protecting her lands and her body. Cersei had been beautiful, but he is done with beautiful. It is not nearly enough for him.

_I trust you._

She trusts him.

He has not done anything since becoming the Warden of the Stormlands to earn this trust, and yet she still trusts him.

He had awakened to his new title of kinslayer, untrustworthy and banished to oversee the kingdom most devastated by the war, and yet she trusts him.

So he touches her. His hand and what remains of his arm pull her close, and his face, still sticky with the salt winds that carried him to her door, rests in the hollow space between her shoulders and her neck.

 _Jaime._ She sighs his name, and it is filled with grace. He hears forgiveness in the syllables that form his name.

 _Brienne. Please._ He asks her because she belongs to herself.

_Yes._

Her reply is soft, and she stands, holding out her hand to him, her whole upper body illuminated by the glow of the firelight.

He takes her hand, and he lets her pull him back up to standing on his now-clean feet, and then she continues to pull him close, and he still hasn’t kissed her, why has he not yet kissed her?

She kisses him before he can answer his own thoughts.

She is unsure once more, and he thinks he’s done something wrong, perhaps she’s finally realized she cannot share this newborn feeling that might be called love in a story with a man as worthless as him. Perhaps there is nothing more for him to do than walk away under the harsh sunlight never to be welcomed by the candle on the mantle and the moonbeams and her eyes and her arms ever again.

The first time, he had been halfway inside her before his mind thought to wonder what in the seven hells he was doing, and there had been a frisson of shock on both of their faces before that pressing need to _move_ had shook the trepidation from both of their eyes.

This second time, she pauses before letting him sweep in to finally kiss her back.

 _Jaime… I- I cannot save you._ She is so brave to say this, and Jaime is shattered by her solemn confession. She looks scared this will chase him away; she looks so determined to ensure he knows she is just as human as he is. He lets out a half laugh, half sigh of relief as he looks upon the woman in front of him, standing tall, still only half dressed.

Her confession had been brave. He must be just as brave.

 _I am saved by the fact you exist._ He replies, taking her hand in his, and kissing it reverently.

She doesn’t gasp, the noise she makes is so much smaller than a gasp, but she is shaken by his words all the same. His heart is beating once more like that of a living man because she was no more than herself when they had met two weeks ago. His heart is his own once more because it has decided it wishes to be hers.

It was halfway to being hers when she stormed up to the castle in Storm’s End, pounding on the grained wood, the wind whipping at her oiled cloak and her straw-like hair, a beacon of the Stormlands sent to demand his attention.

It was hers when he mocked her demands he protect the very land they stand on, and her eyes had flashed like lightning at him, unafraid.

It was hers when he had strode towards her and she had remained steadfast.

It was hers the moment the arguing gave way to that first time, his mouth open to hers, his body molded against hers like it had always been meant to fit there.

It was hers when she had stroked his face tenderly even as their embrace became a tangle of shed clothes and sweaty skin, and it was irredeemably hers when she hadn’t flinched at the touch of the fake hand attached to his stump.

 _Jaime._ She whispers, and his name was only ever meant to sound exactly like it does when she says it. Her fingers curl slightly to press into his skin. She is tender, his Brienne. She is his as much as he is hers.

And then words fade away.

He pulls her close, and begs her silently with a hungry lick of his lips, asking her to let his mouth travel every inch of her exposed skin. The first time, he had been too eager and she had been whimpering too deliciously for him to resist taking her against the wall of his new library without tasting the tendons that run down her neck and the dip between her breasts made subtle by her farming and fighting muscles.

_Yes._

His mouth tracks down her arms, grinning up when the hair of his beard tickles at her wrist and she lets out a surprised yelp of laughter. He lets his tongue press against the hollow of her wrist, a promise of what he intends to do everywhere he is allowed to let his mouth travel on her body.

Her hand curls to cup his cheek and she looks down at him in a glassy-eyed wonder.

 _Jaime._ She says his name again and he almost wants to cry at her awed tone.

 _Take me to bed._ She says, and he lets out a ragged sigh before pressing against her and leading them both in an awkward dance to her bed. He kneels between her legs, tugging at the breeches she chooses to wear, removing them clumsily as he refuses to stop sucking her skin in the way that makes her hiss and whimper his name.

He presses what’s left of his arm against her stomach, letting the warmth from her belly soothe the ache that never seems to abandon his stump as he devotes himself to devouring her like a man starved. She has her long legs settled on his shoulders and he can feel every single time he makes them twitch with pleasure.

Gods above, he will die here in her lap if it means she won’t stop trembling like this and moaning his name.

Her moans become soft whimpers and soon her whole body is tense and her legs tighten around his face before she is boneless on her bed, once more tender, once more sharing her caresses he craves more than almost anything as he kisses a wet trail up her body.

She sweetly kisses his nose with a grin before shyly leaning up to capture his mouth with hers, a blush spreading down from her cheeks to warm her shoulders. He thinks she realizes that she will be able to taste herself on his lips and tongue.

He kisses her with an open mouth so she can savor herself as he does.

Before he can even comprehend it, she is sighing and moaning again, her hips rolling up to meet his, and he wants her just as much as the first time because this second time she knows him and she still wants him.

He wants her for more than just these two moments in time, but he does not know what to do with such a happy thought. He would much rather nurse the wound of thinking this is all he is entitled to, that this woman beneath him is not meant for a man such as him to hold for more than a moment, and that he is lucky already to have a second moment with her.

 _I want you, Brienne._ He dares to speak it aloud, even though she is wanton beneath him, he gives her a chance to tell him no, to prove he is not meant to hope, but she is too good, and she is too brave.

 _I am yours._ She says instead, and now he is the most dangerous man in all of Westeros because he has hope and the trust and (dare he imagine love?) of a glorious woman who wants him and is his in this moment without asking anything in return.

Because he is who he is, his mind flickers through memories of another woman, his sister, and another small room, this one in Eel Alley, where he had been asked to do the impossible, and where he had said no.

He does his best to not cringe at the memory because he is not in that room, and he is not that boy anymore.

He is a broken man, yes, but he is here in this room now with a woman who asks for nothing more than himself.

_I want you. Just you._

It is not perfect, this negotiation of their long limbs, as he removes his clothes and sprawls his body above hers. He allows himself to dream of bringing her to his chambers and the giant bed where she can fully spread herself to be taken or to take him.

For this moment, however, it is perfect for them.

He has his arms against the bed, framing and cradling her face. She looks up to him, and the trust and soft sighs are as flickering as the candle on the mantle, and they both fill him with a warm light that will last in the face of storms.

She takes him in hand and guides him inside her with a gasp of

_Jaime_

And he is lost.

Nothing could prepare him for this to feel as good as it had the first time, and not even the gods could prepare him for it to feel _better_.

This feeling?

This is heaven.

Or hell, for it will eventually end.

But oh, gods above, it’s a torture he will endure.

Because she is sighing his name.

_Jaime…_

She is wrapping her legs around him, and he is thrusting into her.

_Brienne!_

He is allowed to see how hearing her name fall from his lips makes her throw her head back, her neck and her back arching on the bed.

He doesn’t know if he’s strong enough to experience this again.

_Again…_

He doesn’t know how he’ll ever give it up.

 _Again, please… Gods, Jaime, again!_ She pleads, and he looks down in wonder because she looks just as wrecked as he does, just as desperate, and good gods above, that makes him lose his mind.

So he moves again and again, stroking hair back from her temple with his stump.

He moves into her, groaning as he kisses her neck, moving away as she runs her hand down his back.

She lifts her hips, she meets him stroke for stroke, sliding her hand between them to make herself moan the way that she did earlier.

He wonders if she can still feel his tongue when she whimpers, and her eyes meet his and he knows that she can.

He doesn’t know when he starts to break, whether it was the moment he realized he’s been praying to the gods he forsake long ago or if it’s when he feels her contract all around him with a cry she doesn’t try to muffle, but just as the waves break against the shore, Jaime is breaking against Brienne with a cry of pleasure that matches hers.

 _Jaime._ She murmurs his name reverently, a prayer that makes him feel like weeping again.

He doesn’t know how to keep her. He doesn’t know how to make those words spoken in passion manifest outside of it.

She holds him close, she doesn’t let him pull away to begin his journey back to the shore, and he wonders if perhaps she has reached out to him in as much loneliness as he felt when he sought her out, answering her challenge.

 _Brienne…_ He doesn’t know what to say, so he keeps saying her name.

_Brienne._

_Jaime._

Perhaps that is all they need as the candle continues to burn faithfully. All he needs is to say her name, all she needs is to say his, and perhaps there will be a third and a fourth and a fifth and a hundredth time instead of him walking away in sunlight.

She pulls away, and both of them shiver.

 _Do you… will you stay?_ Brienne asks, and he doesn’t know what answer he should give. A tiny, frightened corner of his soul wishes she hadn’t asked, he wishes it were the hundredth time so he would know what his answer should be.

Without knowing what his answer should be to make her happy, he will respond with what he wants.

 _I want to stay._ He says. His head is still nestled in the dip of her neck, and he can feel her arms tense around him.

Was that the wrong answer?

 _What do you want, Brienne?_ He does his best to make sure his voice does not waver.

 _I want you to stay._ She whispers.

The first time he asked her what she wanted, she had run away before striding back to kiss him with a frustrated growl.

Now, it’s the second time, and he kisses her for her honesty, for all that she is.

There will be more questions in the morning when the light of day shines on the optimism beginning to blossom in the moonlight, and the promises they’ve made might not survive its blistering rays.

But for tonight, it’s the second time, and she is in his arms and he is in hers, and there is nothing that can remove the fact that he is welcome to stay.

**Author's Note:**

> This started as me writing to see what differences would exist between the first and second times J/B embark on a Bang That Was Promised and somehow turned into a canon-divergent exploration of feelings. This was one of my first forays into really delving deep into canon to twist it into my own thing rather than just stealing what I want from its surface.
> 
> If it helps you to follow the changes I made, here's a quick summary of my thoughts. This story all stems from Jaime refusing Cersei's demand he join the Kingsguard. To me, that meant he would have been able to command the Lannister forces loyal to the Iron Throne.. and behind Jaime, they're able to better assist the Crown in defeating Robert and the Baratheon forces.  
> Rhaegar also survives (obviously, since he's king in the story) and Rhaegar is the one to kill Aerys, which feels like where things easily could have gone if Jaime hadn't been the one to kill him first.  
> The war finishes with the complete erasure of the Baratheon line, and the Stormlands are considered no-man's-land after the war. Jaime is "awarded" the Stewardship of the Stormlands, almost a form of banishment, when Elia dies because he cannot be trusted to inherit the Westerlands.


End file.
